Local people have been allocated marginal land areas with severely degraded forests to manage. Ecosystems with low productivity cannot cope with local needs and added population pressure. As common resource management regimes have attracted little policy-making attention, the property rights of local communities over forest resources remain unsecured. In addition, the depletion of social capital in Cambodian society, as a result of some thirty years of conflicts, is likely to be less conducive to the emergence of community forestry